Pen pals via balloon launches (remember those?)
Although Earth Day began in 1970, when I was in elementary school in the late 70’s and early 80’s, we hadn’t gotten the memo yet. Naively unaware of the environmental impact, my 4th grade class sent off balloons in hopes of finding a pen pal.
How it worked was, on one side of a manila shipping tag, we wrote our name and address, and on the other side we wrote “Hi, I’m _____. I’m in 4th grade. Do you want to be pen pals?”. And then we’d attach our tags to a balloon.
Once everyone’s balloons were ready, we headed outside and let them go at the same time.
(This isn’t my elementary school, but in case you want a visual, here’s an historical image from a 1985 press photo)
Weeks later, I received my first postcard! On one side, the image of the St. Louis Arch. On the other side, a note from my new pen pal Peggy. I sent her back a postcard with an image of a Liberty Bell on it, and with that, we were officially pen pals.
How does that sweet memory of having a Balloon Launch Pen Pal relate to remothering?
Because of my early “letter writing training”, as I sat down to write you today, my reflexive way of beginning a letter is “I hope this letter finds you well”. It’s fascinating, how automatically that phrase comes to my fingers and my mind when I sit down to write.
Our human brains are truly amazing. Coding information and storing it so we can retrieve it easily later without having to burn a lot of mental-processing calories.However, sometimes what we encoded was based on our best understanding AT THAT TIME. Which means the programming may no longer serve. Fortunately, neuroplasticity is on our side. Which means, if we notice an outdated thought habit, transformation is possible.
How can we spot those outdated patterns? And once we do spot them, how can we re-wire them with intention? That’s what we’ll be doing next month at the free online reMothering Masterclass & Super-Summit Event happening from May 5th – 10th, with expert talks for every step of the remothering roadmap framework.
I’ll be sharing more details later this month when registration opens, but in the meantime, I’d love to invite you to save the date. And if you know anyone that may be interested, here’s the link to learn more.
I hope to see you (virtually) next month!!!
from my heart to yours,
Simona
